The Role of Leaders in Biblical Church Growth, Part 2

By Robb Brunansky

Published March 24, 2026

In the last post, we looked at the first key relationship every church leader has with the Lord.

Church leaders are servants, who have a vital task but no personal significance. God receives all glory for salvation and spiritual growth; none goes to His servants. Church leaders are tools God uses to enable Christians to hear the Word, believe the gospel, and grow in Christ.

The next key relationship church leaders have is with other leaders (verse 8).

A properly functioning church will have a plurality of leaders. It is an immediate red flag in a church when only one person oversees everything. The Corinthians had experienced blessings from how God used several men in their spiritual lives.

Wherever Paul planted churches, he appointed a plurality of elders to oversee the congregation. God’s church has one head, the Lord Jesus Christ, who leads through godly pastors who submit to and apply His Word as a team. When people lead in isolation from others, they are closer to cult leaders than church leaders.

Additionally, church leaders must relate to one another in unity. Biblical church leaders have a single purpose: the growth of God’s garden. No garden can survive if the workers have competing visions. The church will be destroyed if its leaders are competing with one another, or seeking attention from one another, rather than serving with a singular goal and purpose.

The church’s goal and purpose is clear (Matthew 28:18-20). Our orders are to make disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey Christ’s commands. We have one purpose, mission, vision, and goal as a church.

Godly leaders see other leaders, not as rivals, but as fellow servants working together to accomplish the same task. When leaders are viewed as competitors rather than fellow workers seeking the same goal, ministry often breaks down. This disunity can happen even across like-minded churches. It’s easy to look at other churches and see them as competitors rather than as allies who are working in the same garden seeking its growth. The godly church leader, though, recognizes God’s servants are all invested to see the growth of the entire garden.

Another word defines how church leaders think of other leaders: individuality.

Christians have a unified goal and mission, but each believer will be evaluated individually, not collectively. No one will avoid personal accountability to the Lord by exclaiming, “But I was part of a great church that was really growing!”

Paul uses a word translate reward in verse 8. In some contexts, that translation fits the context (Matthew 6:2). However, this word can also mean a wage paid for labor. For example, Jesus uses this term when He tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard receiving their wage at the end of the day (Matthew 20:8). This wage was not a reward as we usually use this word to describe, but payment for services rendered or work performed.

Paul is using a metaphor because the garden is symbolic for the church and the laborers for church leaders. The wage, then, describes the outcome of our service in God’s church. The Lord is not in our debt for our ministries; rather, the outcome of our service will be recompensed individually, and it is based upon our own labor (verse 8).

The word translated “labor” can mean “to engage in an activity that is burdensome” (BDAG), indicating work performed to fatigue (LSJ). Serving in the Lord’s garden is not meant to be a leisure activity. We are not only planting and watering, but we are also dealing with intruders. These intruders include false teachers, temptation and sin, and trials and difficulties that threaten God’s people.

There are moments where everyone in ministry thinks, “Is this worth it?” because of how taxing the labors of ministry can be. The answer is always yes. God graciously ensures His servants receive infinitely more than what we deserve for service to Him and His people.

Be encouraged that the Lord’s wage comes in accordance with our labor, not our success. Christians cannot control how much growth our labor brings, nor the outcomes of our ministries. Instead, we are simply called to faithful service to the Lord. God determines the outcome, success, and breadth of our ministries.

God’s reward is based on the faithfulness of our labor – not how important our job is to others, not how many people listened to our preaching or attended our small group, not the human acclaim of our ministries. Ministry should be like a group project where everyone gives their best, and we know we will be graded individually at the end.

The third relationship is a church leader’s relationship to the body.

How should leaders relate to whom they serve? This dynamic is so important because of potential friction between the leaders and members of the congregation.

Congregants should understand their leaders belong to God, which Paul makes abundantly clear (verse 9). Paul is not saying the Corinthian leaders and God are equal partners, but that they are God’s fellow workers as they belong to the Lord as His possession.

Members of churches must also recognize they themselves belong to God, which is what unifies the body of Christ (verse 9). We don’t belong to ourselves, or to others in the church.

When either the congregation treats leaders like they belong to them or the leaders lord their authority over the body, the entire structure of the church is inverted, robbing the Lord of what rightfully belongs to Him alone. If church leaders are God’s servants, then judgment of the value of their labor is God’s alone to render. The Corinthians, in dividing the church over preferred leaders, essentially took God’s place in judging His servants.

Leaders and members do not have the same role, though. Church leaders are co-workers, called to work as a team to cultivate God’s garden. We aren’t cultivating our own field or building our own construction project; we are co-laborers building something belonging to God.

The members have their role, too, which is to be beneficiaries of the work of their leaders. There should be beautiful synergy between leaders and members. Leaders come with the great desire to plant, water, and build so God’s people grow in the Lord’s calling; and members of the church recognize they are God’s field and building, committing to grow through the ministry of the Word and to use their giftedness for the growth and benefit of the body.

What a harmonious and joyful place the church is when leaders seek to serve the people by helping them grow, and people fellowship with hearts that earnestly desire to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christians seek the same end and purpose, we will see God at work through the various ministries and servants as He builds His church.

In conclusion, we must ask ourselves some powerful and important questions. Is our great desire to use our gifts to see the church grow so that Christ might be exalted as He grows His church? As members of the church, do we genuinely desire to grow in trust of and obedience to His Word?

The role of church leaders is to serve God faithfully by cultivating His garden so He might use us to grow His church, and the role of the congregation is to seek that growth as God’s Word is taught and ministry takes place. May all those belonging to the Lord seek this God-ordained church growth by faithfully and tirelessly using the means He has given us.